The Light of Dead Stars | KSJ

03

You enter the restaurant that Jin had texted you an hour ago to go to, and your eyes would've blown out of your head if it was possible because of the place he chose.

You take the seat he pulls out for you and you eye him curiously. "Still feeling guilty, huh?" You say.

"Hmm?" He looks at you innocently while sipping his wine.

"You don't like this restaurant but I do, and you're treating me to dinner."

"Their whole menu has garlic. I'm allergic to garlic," he grimaces.

"You're not. You just say you are but you just really don't like it."

"How did you know?" He looks at you surprised.

"I remember 3 years ago, one of the interns mistakenly served you dumplings with garlic oil and nothing happened to you," you recount. "No rash, no shortness of breath or nausea... you just went on and finished a whole glass of soda, which we all know you also don't like."

"How... what? Why were you watching me?"

"I wasn't; I was watching him. He was the intern from my team and I got to him too late when he served you that thing, and I swear my life flashed before my eyes," you chuckle. "I wasn't about to kill the Vice President of my company. But you were fine, just made a face and I knew... you were just pretending."

"And for good reason," he defends. "I don't want people to feel uncomfortable when I say I can't stand the taste."

"Fair enough. I'd say that about green tea if it was a more common ingredient," you shrug.

"But I can't ever put anything past you, huh?" He chuckles.

"Hmm, not really," you laugh. "I'm quite observant."

"Is that why you knew about me and Seri this whole time?"

"Ah, I see you overheard my conversation with my parents, then," you say, his actions from earlier to now suddenly making sense.

"But yes, that's why I knew. I mean, we had that Christmas party one time and almost everyone was drunk except for me, and my ever flirty best friend Jimin had his arm around Seri's shoulder and you looked like you were about to tackle him to the ground, but you didn't do anything and just left," you explain. "And so when we spoke before we agreed to the marriage and I asked you if there was something you wanted to tell me, I felt relieved that you admitted your relationship with her. I guess it should've been easier to lie to me and hide it, because there was a chance I'd tell you to stop."

"But you didn't."

"I didn't see the point. Like I said, you're a good person. You don't deserve to be trapped in this with me."

"What you said... about not being keen on love and relationships. Is that true?" He wonders, remembering what his brother had said about your exes.

"Yes, but I don't want you to feel bad for me so that isn't something I'm willing to share yet."

"Okay, fair."

"But sorry, too. My dad went pretty hard, huh?"

"It's okay. I expect him to be protective as a father," Seokjin responds. "And I don't give you enough credit but you're a good person, too. You didn't have a choice in this, either. That must be hard for him to accept - letting his daughter be with a man who can't treat her right. But what he said, about taking a bullet for my family... I didn't know about that."

"It's not really something he broadcasts or anything," you say. "He didn't realize that being part of the building's security team would put him in that much danger. It was after a controversial merger and your grandparents had left the building to go to a press conference and some sniper started shooting towards their car. My dad was assigned outside and protected your grandmother, taking a bullet to his chest. I was a teenager, then."

You recall running to the hospital after your brother had called you, in fear that your father was going to die, but the Kims made sure that he got the best treatment, and they've felt indebted to your family ever since.

"Dad asked to be left out of the news articles for fear that we would be in danger. He quit his job after that, but your grandfather always looked out for us, would check in on my dad regularly and that's how he found out about the threats to my family because of a debt that my parents couldn't pay," you narrate. "And now we're here. So yeah, it's on us. I've been saving to pay it off so we'll no longer need your protection, and you can be free from me."

"You make it sound like being my wife is a terrible thing," he laughs, masking his disappointment that he's somehow let you down.

"I'm not. It's fun being your wife, actually," you nudge his foot, trying to encourage him. "I mean, it felt weird at the start, don't get me wrong - you're my boss and I look up to you as a colleague - but it was easy," you smile, recalling how everything happened so fast but you and Jin kept assuring each other that it was all gonna be okay. "We found a rhythm, a routine, and things worked out. But Seri's important to you and I'm just glad you told me about her right away."

"So you would've hated me if I lied about her?"

"I would've lost respect for you, actually. I can't stand liars, cheaters, abusers... And you're not any of those."

Your face falls a little but you turn to him with bright eyes right away.

It's something you're not yet comfortable to talk about, and that's something he respects.

"Seriously, you gotta raise your standard higher. I'm telling you as a friend and as your husband," he laughs, the irony not being lost on you both.

"I did! I found him, too," you say, your eyes wandering, and Seokjin is glad that at some point in your life, someone hadn't hurt you deliberately. "Seeing the world was just more important to him than me; something always is. He said he'd come back for me but he hasn't."

"And now you're stuck with me. I'm sorry," Seokjin says, wanting to have your smile back.

"Well, that was 5 years ago, and he still isn't back, which is another reason why I agreed to this. I'll never know what will happen. Five years is a long time to wait for someone."

"It is, huh?" He asks, suddenly feeling a tightness in his chest that really started since you came home last week.

"Yeah, I mean, people make promises to comfort us, to give us hope, even if half the time, they're broken. But he said he'd come for me so we can be together without the distance, and I believed him; I still do," you share. "Why, how long have you and Seri been together?"

"Five years."

"Oh, well... Uh, your situation is different," you backtrack.

"Is it, though? I..." Seokjin trails, fumbling his words as the thoughts start to make him wonder.

First, it was fearing you'd hated him for bringing Seri to your house, and then his brother slamming a cannonball at him about why he'd never taken his relationship with Seri further, and then humiliating himself in front of your parents, and then tonight.

You, specifically, and how comfortable he feels around you despite your situation and how you always try to make him feel better about everything, especially about himself.

And how the thought of 5 years being too long to wait for someone hits him more than he cares to admit.

"Yeah, maybe you're right. It's different," he settles, not wanting to argue.

He knows you're right, in a way that unlike whoever it is you were talking about, Seri is here, and that makes it different.

But he also can't help but think that so many times, he had a chance to admit his relationship with her, yet he never did. That in all these 5 years, all he's done was make her wait, because something else was always more important to him than her.

Work, perhaps? Maybe it's his time, his convenience, his comfort that mattered more. But as he watches you eat and critique your dish, the soft smile painting your face whenever you talk about food, he thinks that maybe it's something else entirely, and he's only now finding out exactly what that is.